England and Austria

In English news papers there has been enormous interest in the Josef Fritzl case, as one might expect.

One of the observations that was oft repeated today was puzzlement over the attitude of Austria to the whole case. There was no lengthy trial lasting weeks or even months, no extended public wringing of hands, of introduction of draconian privacy laws in order to "prevent this ever happening again". In other words, Austria has handled this in its own way, and without the prurient public washing of dirty laundry, now so beloved by the British media, and presumably public (whoever they may be).

While I can hardly claim in depth knowledge after having so little contact, I do know that Austria is a deeply conservative nation with a strong sense of national pride and classic religion.

Rather than wail about the whole thing for years, they would much rather deal swiftly with it, lock the guy away for the rest of his life, probably quietly investigate and close the case. There are unlikely to be TV programs about Elisabeth's life underground, and also unlikely to be a wave of copycats, all glorying in trying to outdo the original. There *may* well be other cases like this, and they may all have a common root (and what might that be? A little peek into Austrian history going back 80 years might well provide some clues) but thank goodness they're not wallowing in it.

The British could learn quite a lot of positive things from this, instead of complaining about how their chance for a media circus has disappeared overnight.